Novel
Homo Faber
Homo faber
Max Frisch · 1957
Synopsis
Walter Faber, a Swiss engineer in the service of UNESCO, believes only in calculations and probabilities. A flight from New York makes an emergency landing in the Mexican desert; there he meets Herbert, the brother of an old friend, Joachim, and follows him to Joachim's plantation in Guatemala. Returning to Europe by sea, he falls in love on the liner with a young woman, Sabeth, meets her again in Paris and decides to accompany her to Greece, where her mother lives. He writes all this after the fact, as one writes a report.
Context
The novel appeared in 1957 from Suhrkamp, in Frankfurt, with the subtitle A Report. It is made up of two stations: the report that Faber writes in Caracas, then notes written in a hospital in Athens. Philippe Pilliod translated it into French for Gallimard in 1961, Michael Bullock into English as early as 1959, and the book became a bestseller; Volker Schlöndorff and Richard Dindo each made an adaptation of it, in 1991 and in 2014.
Who it is for
A short novel, in the form of a report written by the narrator. The irony lies in the fact that he does not understand.
Prizes and reception
One of the best-known prose works of its author; Frisch received the Büchner Prize the following year, in 1958.